Latin America

• Friday, February 16th 2024 - 11:40 UTC

  Now Argentines do their shopping across the border due to lower prices

  

  After little over two months in office, President Javier Milei has managed to reverse a trend whereby people from neighboring countries crossed the border to do their shopping in Argentina. According to reports from the provinces of Misiones and Jujuy, it is now less expensive for Argentines to do it the other way around.

• Friday, February 16th 2024 - 11:28 UTC

  Defendant sentenced to nearly 40 years for involvement in Pecci's murder

  

  Defendant Margareth Lizeth Chacón Zúñiga was sentenced Thursday by a court in Cartagena to 39 years and 10 months in prison for her involvement in the murder of Paraguayan anti-Mafia Prosecutor Marcelo Pecci in May 2022 while honeymooning in Colombia. Pecci's family requested for Chacón the maximum sentence of 47 years in prison.

• Friday, February 16th 2024 - 11:14 UTC

  Joint statement issued against the arrest of Venezuelan opposition activist

  

  Given the arrest in Venezuela of opposition activist Rocío San Miguel last week, the governments of Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Uruguay issued a joint statement Thursday calling for her release.

• Friday, February 16th 2024 - 11:10 UTC

  Uruguayan Senator praises Bukele's transformation of El Salvador

  

  Uruguayan Senator Juan Sartori of President Luis Lacalle Pou's National Party met this week with his Salvadorean President “friend” Nayib Bukele and said that the Central American country had “achieved a total change in security and openness to the world.”

• Thursday, February 15th 2024 - 22:16 UTC

  The Economist: Uruguay's democracy is one of the strongest in the world

  

  Uruguay has been recognized as the only full democracy in South America and the leading democracy in Latin America, according to the Democracy Index 2023 compiled by the Economist Group and published by The Economist magazine.

• Thursday, February 15th 2024 - 10:33 UTC

  Covid-19 cases on the rise in Sao Paulo and in the region

  

  Authorities in the city of São Paulo have reported that the number of Covid-19 cases more than tripled between the first epidemiological week of 2024 (Dec. 31, 2023, to Jan. 6, 2024) and the sixth (Feb. 4 to 10) after growing from 881 detections to 3,443, according to the interactive panel of the Municipal Health Department (SMS).

• Wednesday, February 14th 2024 - 10:49 UTC

  Paraguayan President due in Buenos Aires for meeting with Milei

  

  Paraguayan President Santiago Peña is making a snap trip to Buenos Aires on Wednesday to meet with his Argentine colleague Javier Milei, who has just returned from Italy. It will be their second encounter after Milei's Dec. 10 inauguration.

• Wednesday, February 14th 2024 - 10:32 UTC

  Peru: Trans community marches through Lima to demand protection

  

  Scores of trans people and members of the LGTBIQ+ community staged a demonstration Tuesday through the streets of Lima to protest against hate crimes and defend their “right to life.” Since 2021, at least five members of the trans community have been murdered and threats and other violent incidents have been on the rise.

• Tuesday, February 13th 2024 - 10:55 UTC

  Trinidad and Tobago does not rule out foreign help to deal with oil spill

  

  Authorities in Trinidad and Tobago are not ruling out seeking international help to clean up the oil stain from a mysterious capsizing ship that is heavily affecting tourism and the environment along 15 kilometers of beaches there, Agencia Brasil reported.

• Monday, February 12th 2024 - 10:58 UTC

  Lacalle Pou insists Venezuela a dictatorship with no free elections

  

  Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou said Sunday from Melo, the capital f of the department (province) of Cerro Largo that the current government of Venezuela was “a dictatorship.”